I’ve read quite a bit lately about the many issues plaguing education. What a refreshing change to read a book by an author who understands all of that, sees through the morass, and cares enough about her profession to help save it one colleague at a time. Meenoo Rami’s new book Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching is for all of us.

For those who are having trouble connecting (or re-connecting) to the joy of teaching, Meenoo Rami tells how to take steps toward finding support and meaning. For those who thrive in the classroom but are troubled by other factors in their schools, Meenoo suggests ways to provide context and balance.

For those intrigued by the idea of empowering students but uncertain about how to proceed, Meenoo has it covered. “When students create content rather than just consume it, their engagement grows capaciously,” she says. If we want authentic engagement, and who doesn’t, the key lies in how students interact with our content–actively or passively, with compliance or with enthusiasm.

For those who are doing just fine but looking for ways to get better, Thrive is full of practical suggestions for how to connect to other educators, our subject matter and students, as well as our own internal sources of inspiration and motivation.

My favorite section of Thrive deals with how fear can affect our professional relationships, classroom behavior, and job satisfaction: “Students do not benefit from your true passion when that passion is hidden beneath layers of doubt, insecurity about being ridiculed, or fear of failure. The question becomes: How do we manage this fear to make it productive instead of corrosive?” The advice that follows this question comes from a deep understanding of what it means to be a passionate educator and a work-in-progress human.

No matter where we are in our career paths as educators, Meenoo Rami’s Thrive gives us inspiration, hope, and pragmatic clarity about how to move forward in creating or reclaiming the professional lives we’ve always envisioned.